import string, sys def summer(numCols, fileName): sums = [0] * numCols # make list of zeros for line in open(fileName, 'r').readlines(): # scan file's lines cols = string.split(line) # split up columns for i in range(numCols): # around blanks/tabs sums[i] = sums[i] + eval(cols[i]) # add numbers to sums return sums if __name__ == '__main__': print summer(eval(sys.argv[1]), sys.argv[2]) # '% summer.py cols file'